Laughs

      I recently finished reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. My sister said it made you realize your family wasn't as screwed up as you thought it was by comparison. Well said. It was sad and disturbing. Jeannette's parents are brilliant but I'm thinking suffering from bad childhoods and some mental problem. It's the only explanation I can think of. They have four kids and move around around constantly. Sometimes the kids are put in school, sometimes not. Sometimes there's food to eat, sometimes not. The story that sticks out in my mind is when the 4th baby was born the mom gave her to 6 year old Jeannette to hold on the way to some new destination. In the back of a U-Haul. With the door shut. In the dark. For several hours. It made me cringe. I only continued reading it because I wanted to find out what happened to these poor kids. In the end, it was only when each of them got old enough to realize this wasn't exactly a normal life and that their parents wouldn't be the ones to make things better; they had to do it themselves. The worst part was discovering the mom had inherited land worth something like a million dollars. So while her children practically starved, went without indoor plumbing and electricity, she refused to sell it because it should "stay in the family". Like I said, something not quite right.

     Anyhow, now I am reading Afterbirth, which is a collection of stories about the reality of having kids. I started reading it last night and I literally laughed out loud. I was afraid I was going to wake hubby up. Granted, it was 9:45pm and I was pretty tired so maybe it wasn't that funny. And maybe it won't be funny to you unless you have kids but even so...

Dana Gould, a writer for The Simpsons, gets irritated every time someone asks, "Why did you adopt?" He writes, 

It's a phenomenally personal question, but I get it all the time. I don't understand this. I don't walk up to people with biological children and ask, "So, what happened here? Did your husband come home drunk and stuff his junk in your business?"

Or his new perspective on the world:

It has totally ruined porn. All I can think is, Look at all these DVDs, starring someone's daughter!!! And look! Someone else's daughter! Look at this blazing someone's-daughter on someone-else's-daughter action!

Merrin Dungey's essay was also great. 

I want to start by apologizing to my vagina. I just... I just didn't know what was going to happen. I thought it might be easy, or, well, easier than it was. I just wish I could go back in time and get to know you better and appreciate your work more. I just... I just didn't know.

I apologize to any woman whose baby shower I attended before I had a baby. I just didn't know what you really needed, and all those useless stuffed animals and baby booties...

I apologize once again to my husband, this time for criticizing you every time you dress our daughter. I know that she is my very own personal doll come to life, and I like to play dress-up, but you make such weird choices. I recognize this is not America's Next Top Model, but I do ask you to just think about what makes sense sometimes, that's all.

I put my daughter in fancy clothes when we go out, to compensate for the monster that is pushing her around.

Finally, I'd like to apologize to my former self. I always thought you had a few pounds to lose and maybe you could look better. I never knew how good you had it, and I am really sorry. What I would give to fit into your clothes again!

You can guess that I find all of this funny because I can relate. Well, except for the adoption story. That was just plain funny.